Last time an article about this came up, it was argued that we should be assuming that the justices know what they're doing. They are the supreme court, after all, so they probably understand the patents they're ruling on and the results of their rulings. This article demonstrates that we can't make that assumption:

  He was stunningly interrupted by the rookie Justice on the
  far left seat, Justice Sotomayor. It was stunning since she
  sounded so off-base. She asked about the “actual machine.”
  In an argument about treatment, knowledge and diagnosis,
  where neither the drug or the blood testing were at issue,
  “machine” sounded uninformed. Our reporter looked down. He
  was embarrassed for the Justice.